Mobile or cellular radio telephones are a well-known example of a portable communication apparatus according to the above. Other common examples are for instance personal communicators, personal digital assistants, paging devices, etc. Throughout this document, the present invention is illustrated in terms of a mobile telephone, in an exemplifying and non-limiting sense.
As mobile telephones have become more advanced and miniaturized, it has become increasingly important to provide an intuitive and yet precise interface to the user. The available man-machine interface in a mobile telephone is normally restricted to a display (such as an LCD display) and a keypad. Therefore, and it is an all but simple task to provide an adequate level of user-friendliness, particularly when bearing in mind that while modern mobile telephones are provided with more and more functions and features, the displays thereof have not been increased accordingly (mainly due to market demands for a limited overall apparatus size).
One well-known way of providing a user-friendly interface is to use a menu system as set out above. The various functions or features of the telephone are represented by different menus, sub-menus and menu items. The user navigates in the menu system by using certain control keys on the keypad for sequentially scrolling through the various menus. The user selects a certain menu or menu item by pressing a certain key or combination of keys on the keypad.
Although such menu systems are easy for users to utilize, they still have some disadvantages. For instance, if a large number of features are available, the user may have to scroll through several menus and menu items until arriving at the particular feature, that the user is looking for. Furthermore, not all users have identical needs and preferences; one user may prefer a certain menu structure, which may be less useful to another user. Therefore, it is difficult for the telephone manufacturer to design a menu structure, which fits all users.
The above drawback may be reduced by providing a short menu system and an extended menu system, where the contents of the short menu system is a subset of the extended menu system. Such a menu structure is disclosed in GB-A-2 293 951 (Motorola Inc.), where the user may choose, while scrolling through the extended menu system, to move individual menu items from the extended menu system to the short menu system, and where the user may delete individual menu items from the short menu, while scrolling through it. Hence, the short menu system is dynamic in the sense, that the user may customize the short menu system to include only such menu items, which are desired by the user.
The user enters the extended menu system by pressing a specific menu key on the keypad for a time greater than a predetermined time period. If, on the other hand, the menu key is pressed for a time shorter than the predetermined time period, the short menu system is entered. Both the extended menu system and the short menu system comprise various top-level menus (called “branches”), which in turn may comprise various sub-level menus and/or menu items for performing different functions in the mobile telephone.
While the approach shown in GB-A-2 293 951 has a distinct advantage in that it allows the user to customize the short menu system, some disadvantages still remain. For instance, the use of two different menu systems (extended and short, respectively) requires that the user have to learn the respective menu structure of both menus. Accordingly, the user will have to remember in which menu system a particular menu item is located, before entering the extended or short menu system. In reality, the user will probably use the short menu system in most cases, since the short menu system will enable the user to arrive at a desired menu item more quickly, as described above. However, the user will most likely not be able to remember exactly which menu items, that are currently included in the short menu system. Therefore, every once in a while, the user may find himself in a position, where he has entered the short menu system but looks for a menu item, which is only included in the extended menu system. In such a case, the user will have to exit the short menu system and then enter the extended menu system, as described above, and traverse the hierarchy of the extended menu system, until arriving at the desired menu item. Being left with a small keypad as the only available user input device, such a procedure may involve several or even numerous key pressings, until the desired menu item is eventually found.
A similar concept of customizing a short menu system has been used in recent mobile telephone models manufactured by the present applicant. Here, the extended menu system has a separate customization menu, one menu item of which is for entering a mode for customizing the short menu system, i.e. by adding/removing individual menu items of the extended menu system to/from the short menu system. A drawback of this approach is that, in order to customize the short menu system, the user has to enter the customization mode through aforesaid separate menu. Furthermore, the user still has to learn two separate menu structures.